Movie Industry Friends Rewrite the Credits, Earn $20,000/Month

This transcript was generated from the episode audio and may contain minor errors.

[Music]

Oh, hey there, what's up? Welcome, this is Side Hustle School. I am Chris Guillebeau. Question for you as we kick things off today. Actually, a few questions in a row.

Where is the loudest place in the world? Do you know? How does one country owe debt to another country? And how does that country then pay that debt off? What makes a relationship last?

And the question we all wonder all the time, how do I deal with my psychopathic cousin who is getting close to my father to make my father love him more than me? Well, the detailed answers to all of these random questions and more can be found on the website Quora. That is Quora.com, Q-U-O-R-A. It is like Reddit, a fascinating place to go and just see all kinds of different stuff. You can kind of go down a rabbit trail, but you'll actually learn something along the way.

It's interesting. And in the Side Hustle School workshops, I sometimes mention that Quora can be good for finding customers or clients as well. So it's not just super random questions. When you make an account, you can answer questions of your own as well as ask them. And in some cases, this can be a natural tool for lead generation.

I mentioned Reddit. Reddit can be used in a similar way, but it's a bit less friendly, a bit less welcoming to someone who has something to promote. It is still possible, but you have to be a lot softer with it. With Quora, as long as you're providing a helpful answer, it's not at all unusual or unwelcome to post something lightly promotional at the end of your answer. For example, if you've written the definitive ebook to how to deal with psychopathic cousins, that would be a great question where you could go and post your answer and then you include a little link at the bottom and say, well, to learn more, go here.

Now, actually, today's story that I'm gonna tell you in just a moment has nothing to do with Quora, at least not specifically. I was just reminded of it because the people featured in the story today, they solve a problem that most of us have never heard of. It does sound kind of random, but then when you think about it, you realize, oh, I can see how that could be an issue. So specifically, the problem they focus on is about the end credits that come up at the end of movies. You know, those hundreds of lines of text that credit hundreds of different people.

How are those organized and collected? Well, these guys have found a way to make it much easier for movie producers, and this has turned into a highly profitable side business for them. So lots to learn from them, or at least a lot to think about as you consider how you might apply this kind of thinking to your industry, your business, or to some field that you have knowledge in. Stay tuned for all the details. [Music]

When it comes to business models, software is one of the most profitable.

Huge companies like Microsoft make billions by selling software to customers worldwide. But what about creating software as a side hustle? Well, you've heard a couple of stories about this before on the show, or at least you may have. Those stories do exist somewhere in the archives if you want to go back. Today's story is about InCrawl, a software product with a unique approach built by John Aramic, also known as Pliny, and his co-founder Allen.

InCrawl is what's known as SAS, Software as a Service. Unlike conventional software that might be installed on your computer, like Microsoft Windows or Excel, or whatever you use, SAS products run in the cloud and customers pay a fee to use or access them. InCrawl serves a very specific purpose. It creates end credit sequences for movies, you know, what you see at the end of the film, where every person that had a hand in making the film gets their credit. And there are often a lot of people with hands who get their names at it.

Well, the old school process for this is surprisingly complicated. All those names had to be compiled and sent to a typographer, and then sent to a videographer who could compile and edit. The whole sequence then needs to be rendered for film. Well, InCrawl completely automates that process using software, and aspiring and professional filmmakers the world over are paying for the privilege of using it. So how did it come to be?

Well, it all started, like so many of our stories, with a couple of drinks. John Pliny Aramic and his co-founder Allen both worked in the film industry. They had both brainstorm ideas in the past, but never committed to anything. And then one night at a party, over those drinks, they committed to building a project together, solving a problem they'd long knew existed, the time consuming and painstaking task of creating those end credits. Pliny and Allen each threw $1,000 at the project to get started.

This would enable them to get a server and the technology required to run something like this, as well as cover any small expenses that might crop up. Allen had a coding background, and was able to whip up a very basic version of end crawl. Now, when I say basic, I mean really basic. They had a program script that would run on their laptop, and customers would email them a spreadsheet that they'd then feed into the script. That script would automatically generate the credits and they'd send them back in 15 minutes.

Even with this manual process, it was a big improvement because the process used to take up to 24 hours using the old methods. 24 hours to 15 minutes, not surprisingly, the customers loved it. The fact that it was a crude version and not automated didn't matter much in the beginning. They were able to charge $500 a pop for each in-credit sequence generated. And even with this super basic and in their words janky proof of concept software, they served their first 100 customers using this system for $50,000 in income.

They were smart about what they did with this money because as the money started coming in, they reinvested it into further development of the product. They added features like automated processing, no more manually feeding in that spreadsheet, introducing a user dashboard and improving the overall user experience. These improvements helps a lot, but one of the biggest hurdles with a product like this is finding customers in the longterm. The initial sales came from plenty of contacts in the film industry. So that helped.

They were able to generate initial sales, get some recommendations, but once they'd exhausted that immediate network, things got harder. They decided to try a bunch of different marketing channels, some of which worked and some of which didn't. Persistence was key. They discovered that Facebook ads didn't work well for them, whereas customer demos and networking groups did. After they found these marketing channels and served more and more customers, things began to grow organically.

Over the course of a few years, they began making significant money from the project, all while continuing with their day jobs. They didn't celebrate too much when they made their first sale, but they did have a great dinner out together to celebrate when they hit the milestone of $500,000 in total sales. That's correct, half a million dollars in just a few years. Now, just to be clear, a lot of that money has been reinvested back into the business. It has funded customer support staff, extra development on the product, as well as their large storage and server costs, because each end crawl sequence is 250 gigabytes.

That's a lot of storage space. In 2018, end crawl is generating around $20,000 a month. After expenses, this gets John and Alan really close to being able to quit those day jobs. Their plan is to double revenue over the next year while holding on the jobs, and if everything goes well, then look at making it a full-time commitment. By then, hopefully, it will pay them both a good salary.

So, it is possible to build a software-based business as a side hustle. It's not simple. It can take time to build, and the process is methodical and not always certain. From an idea conceived over a few drinks, to a script running on one laptop that now generates end credits for films like Moonlight, Snowden, Lady Bird, and The Big Sick, end crawls days of crawling have dramatically sped up. In fact, they're off and running.

[Music]

So, one of the things I try to highlight day after day on the show is that there are all sorts of ways to make money. This is a great example of an industry need that if you work in that industry, you completely understand what a hassle it's been to prepare these credits, or if that's been your responsibility, you understand how much time it takes you. So, these guys, just two regular guys, have found a way to create a service that's now used by major producers, major directors for these huge productions, these huge movies, as well as lots of amateur indie producers. So, good for them, and the question for you, not necessarily a question you would find on Quora, but what is something in your industry that other people might never think of, but you know is a hassle, or otherwise takes a lot of time? And then what could be a possible solution or just a substantial improvement to it?

Could there perhaps be a side hustle waiting for you, or at least for someone? Now, last but not least, I want to read a quote from John. In our interview with him, he said, "The early growth was 100% organic, "but what we found is that as we progressed, "growth got harder, not easier. "There is this fallacy that as you grow, "everything starts flowing downhill, "but we found the opposite to be true. "Once all the low-hanging fruit has been picked, "the real work of selling began." That's just a good thing to keep in mind.

It's a good counterpoint to the general principle that things do get easier as you go along. I think that is a good general principle, but as you can see, of course, everything is situational, circumstantial, depending on what you're doing. So, I would say don't be afraid to work hard, but of course you're not afraid to work hard. That's why you're listening to the show. You want to invest in yourself, right?

Congrats to these guys. Of course, we'll link up the project in the show notes. Don't forget, inspiration is good, but inspiration with action is better. Those notes are at sidehustleschool.com/536. That is episode 536.

We'll be back again tomorrow, and I hope you'll join me for it. My name is Chris Guillebeau. This is "Side Hustle School."